Dr. Jeff Master's, the founder of Weather Underground, is hurricane blogging and he says that Ike is a very nasty piece of work:

"Ike is now larger than Katrina was, both in its radius of tropical storm force winds--275 miles--and in it radius of hurricane force winds--115 miles. For comparison, Katrina's tropical storm and hurricane force winds extended out 230 and 105 miles, respectively. Ike's huge wind field has put an extraordinarily large volume of ocean water in motion. When this swirling column of water hits the shallow waters of the Continental Shelf, it will be be forced up into a large storm surge which will probably rival the massive storm surge of Hurricane Carla of 1961."

Masters is predicting that 180 miles patch of the Texas Gulf Coast (including Galveston) is going to get hit with a 10 - 15 foot storm surge.

The obvious: Please pray, give, and if you know anyone in the area, strongly urge them to leave now!

They really don't want their children to be able to tell these kinds of stories someday:

About our renter who was forced out of his car by water, took refuge on a rooftop until it crumbled under him and then (miraculously!) rode out a more powerful hurricane than Ike in a tree.

About my classmate whose father tied his family to a tree when their house washed away. Her mom died tied to the tree, her father died two days later of shock, and she lived despite being impaled by a tree branch driven through her lung.

About my parent's best friends who lived a half mile inland but were driven up into their attic crawl space by rising water. They found an ax there, chopped a hole in the ceiling, climbed onto the roof, and amazingly, (thank God!) their boat had survived and was floating beside the house. And so they sailed away, escaping certain death.

We lived on the beach and we almost didn't leave. One room - my bedroom upstairs - survived but the rest of the second floor collapsed upon the first floor. I have sometimes thought about what might have happened if my father hadn't changed his mind. Tried to imagine what it would have been like to live through that night, hearing the house crumble around us, the howl of the wind, certain that we were going to die.

All neighborhoods... and possibly entire coastal communities... will be inundated during high tide. Persons not heedingevacuation orders in single family one or two story homes willface certain death. Many residences of average constructiondirectly on the coast will be destroyed. Widespread anddevastating personal property damage is likely elsewhere. Vehiclesleft behind will likely be swept away. Numerous roads will beswamped... some may be washed away by the water. Entire flood pronecoastal communities will be cutoff. Water levels may exceed 9 feetfor more than a mile inland. Coastal residents in multi-storyfacilities risk being cutoff. Conditions will be worsened bybattering waves. Such waves will exacerbate property damage... withmassive destruction of homes... including those of blockconstruction. Damage from beach erosion could take years torepair.